UNDULATIONS

My week:

Monday: i rode for 4 hours through a damp, fall morning. out in the country the leaves smell so ripe and fecund. interesting how the smell of a dead, decaying thing can be so appealing and life affirming. ran off the bike through some of my favorite trails; it was one of the last truly nice, warm days left in the year; i tried to practice mindfulness and let the experience of warmth (ok, this is relative because it was 14 celsuis) and humidity penetrate my hands, brush over my ears as i moved through space.

just a few hours earlier, i discovered that i had left my car un-locked and outside overnight. some yahoo ransacked it and walked away with my ipod.

Wednesday: another day of epic biking. but first, i drove to Milton, to get retul fit on my new bike. man, ian maclean is a genius!!!! i am fully 3 cm lower than i was this summer, yet my proprioceptive experience is quite similar. five hours in the saddle through the halton hills, more fall colors, a brief hail storm, nice sunlight, some hard wind, and the better part of a day well spent. 150k and a nice run through sub-division trails to top it off.

FRANKEN-BIKER

Thursday: at the best of times, it takes some doing to get myself out of the house, (usually away from my daughter's bed, where i am snuggled up reading her bed-time stories, or lying on her pink princess sheets listening to her tell stories as she poos); it takes some doing to lurch myself away and go to my master's class at a local high-school pool. to top it all off, the water is always a few degrees colder than anywhere else i swim, adding insult to injury, and relative hypothermia after 90 minutes of swimming in which you never really get to feel comfortably warm.

today, my head was just not in it. something about the experience of being immersed in cold water set me off. i felt dizzy, light headed, short of breath, my goggles and ear plugs were suffocating me and i felt as though i would do anything to take them off, to get out of that cold, sensory deprived fluid prison.

of course, i did the right or wrong thing, depending on how you look at it. i pulled the plug on the workout and went home.

in retrospect, many days later, i realize that i was primed to experience dread and panic, it was forshadowing, it was my mind getting ready for all the associations of dread, fear, anxiety and panic that attending a funeral of someone much loved by me and my family,  on sunday would bring.

Friday: up/down, high/low, panic/relax...this is how undulations occur, this is how this build is going, how it intersects with my life. i go to my regular pool, expecting to put in 4000 yards and find that a pipe broke the night before and they had to add 1/3 fresh water..result; FREEZING water. i spend a long time on the deck trying to brace myself for the assault, telling my body lies about why this is a good idea. one length and i start to panic again...the water is so cold i can't catch my breath, i don't want to put my face down.

i get out and drive over to another pool, close by, renowned as a geriatric dip-pond because of the high heat. after a few lengths there, my heart races, my head explodes with heat, and i spend an hour struggling with this uncomfortable feeling of  over-heating and just not wanting to be immersed in this uncomfortable, hot soup.

i start to worry that for some unknown reason, i am developing a panic phobia about swimming. i catastrophize. all my training is for naught. six years of swimming have been halted by a wall of panic.  i will not be able to stay in the water and complete the first leg of my ironman.

Saturday: i make a point of swimming 3000m  in a pool that is neither arctic nor equatorial in its orientation. i still fight a bit with brief feelings of discomfort, but soon, all is well in the world, and i am enjoying my lousy swim stroke with full gusto.

Sunday: this is the day i most want to write about, the least related to triathlon, yet somehow the most related to what ironmanning helps me to deal with/not deal with.

the funeral. i hold my daughter tight, as we stand in the dark, grey cold morning, looking into the six foot pit that is the grave, explaining to her that a person's soul is not their body, trying to comfort her with concepts, that i realize i don't really understand or necessarily fully embrace myself. she is skeptical, but not in a cynical way, just matter of fact when things don't make sense. i think to myself that death does not make sense to my toddler, because of it's very nature. why, in a world that is filled with people you love, with fun, with a G-d who watches over everyone and looks after them, why does a person's soul leave their body and they go away forever, to rot in the ground? just not an idea that my three year old can process in the context of what makes sense to her about the world. i realize that it doesn't really make sense to me either, nor do i know more about what it is than her, i am just, perhaps, more resigned, or am i?

as i watch the casket go under and then everyone puts roses, then dirt on top. i feel that same feeling of panic, of being immersed in something hideous yet inescapable that had come on the previous week in the water, and i realize that my panic has been about death, all this time, about the funeral, about my projecting myself into the ground, and feeling the desperation that arises from being sub-merged, cut off, isolated, forever, with no escape. in spite of what i told my daughter, my, rather primitive ego, seems to be firmly rooted in my body...

Monday: (again) undulations within undulations. another day, another bike ride. this time, a full 180k with over 5000 feet of climbing, early morning chill and harsh winds that give up to late-fall warmth and beauty.

the first two hours quickly morph into a type of hell; cold, dark, miserable, being blown all over the road by incessant, unrelenting, bitter head-winds. i worry about frost-bite.

things move from bad to worse as i mis-judge the angle of a deep railroad track, and am thrown from my steed. i take a moment to assess the state of affairs and realize that i came out smelling roses. but it re-affirms the fragility of my undertakings. i climb back on, resolute and appreciative that somehow, in those moments when i was at my lowest, it got alot warmer outside and the wind started to die down.

two hours later,  fresh air blows past me as i meditate in the aero position and yes, the hoped for epiphany, the sought after moment of full presence in somatic/sensory overload, the full on celebration of life, the full above-ground rebellion at death arrives and i am, supra-terranean, on top, soaring like icarus, seemingly above the limits of my own existence...